Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Baaz by Anuja Chauhan

Blue skies, eye candy Anuja Chauhan`s latest offering doesn’t stray too far from her template: feisty heroine, gorgeous hero, as much external conflict as internal (maybe more of the former here, given that the backdrop here is the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War), much toe-curling passion, a very interesting gaggle who make up the supporting cast…

Feature: The importance of humour

Laugh your way to joy! As we celebrate World Laughter Day tomorrow, Sheila Kumar explains how humour has indeed become the best panacea of our times Can you do a piece to coincide with World Laughter Day, my editor asks me. Much mystified, I go online to dig up some information about World Laughter Day,…

Book review: Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinsborough

Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes keeps you guessing, and even if you think you know where the story is going, you still want to go down that path,to get there at closure point. Throughout, you relish the mystery and the deliberate holding back of information because you know it’s building up to something big,…

Book review: Adi Parva by Amruta Patil

This is more a brief take than review. Amruta Patil`s marvellous-marvellous-marvellous ADI PARVA is a book I go back to oftentimes. The thought-provoking text and astonishing artwork in this retelling of the Mahabharata meld so seamlessly, so mellifluously, the reader is richly rewarded over and over again. Here, Indra`s ruby-embellished Indrajaal; Ganga entering…

Book review: Bullets and Bylines by Shyam Bhatia

This is more a brief take than review. Bullets and Bylines (Speaking Tiger publications), veteran journalist`s Shyam Bhatia`s accounts from conflict zones, contains one particular story which, for this reader, was worth the price of the book. On a visit to Tehran after Khomeini has consolidated his grip inside the country, Bhatia keeps a low…

Book review: Things To Leave Behind by Namita Gokhale

This is more a brief take than review. Things to leave behind by Namita Gokhale. Penguin Viking This is the third and final volume of Gokhale`s Himalayan trilogy, A Himalayan Love Story and Book of Shadows being the first two. However, I write of this as a standalone story, which it is. After I turned…

Book review: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Tales from the North A master storyteller dons his storied cape again. I must confess that this would be my third reading of the Norse tales, stories that hold me in complete thrall each book, each reading. So my first reaction here was: Neil Gaiman doing a re-telling? Will it serve? However, Gaiman…

Feature: The north-south divide

It has taken a good many years spent criss-crossing the north and south of India, for me to come to this conclusion: Kipling got his latitudes mixed up with his longitudes. When he famously remarked that East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, he ought to have laid that sentence…

Book excerpts: A Feast of Vultures by Josy Joseph

A sobering, significant parsing of our system, political, economic, social.

Photo Feature: A photo essay on friendship

A short note on the making of this post. April 1, 2017 Blog: whyaretheystillmyfriends Sheila Kumar writes about the making of a photo essay about friends Before you start Googling for a Bergman or Fellini film that bears the title of Falling, let me hasten to clarify: Falling is the name of a photo essay…